Help w/FCP importing of MARKED clips on P2 card

[filmguy123]

I recorded a football game tonight to pull out highlights, and as I went, I used the SHOT MARK button on every good clip I had. So now my P2 card has all of them MARKED that are good. Well I want to import just the good clips in FCP, so I turn the camera on in DUB mode to import the card, but no data shows up on which clips are marked...

Is there a way to have FCP recognize which clips are marked so I can just select those first?

AND/OR, if not, what can I do w/in the HVX to remedy this? Is there a way to delete all of the non-marked clips from the P2 card?

Anyway I thought marking this would save me time in editing, but it does no good if I can't see what I marked in post!! Please help, thanks a bundle.

 

[Barry_Green]

if not, what can I do w/in the HVX to remedy this?

Nag Apple to come out of the stone age, at least into the bronze age, and start supporting some metadata features. FCP's P2 support is the lamest on the market.

Here's what you can do to save some time: use P2CMS to create a hard-linked export of your marked clips. P2CMS (free software from Panasonic) will let you see and view your clips and those with the mark. Select the marked clips and tell it to export to a new volume, but export only a hard-linked copy. Then import from FCP using that hard-linked copy; it won't take up any additional space and it won't take any time, but it'll let you do what you want.

 

[filmguy123]

Thanks Barry, I'll check that. Also I noticed on the FCP log & transfer - while it doesnt show marked clips on the detailed list, if you select the actual clip, under log notes, all the ones I marked have the "GOOD" checkbox selected, so it did see it and remember. So what I did was I just used the down arrow and went through each clip, hitting add selected to everyone with the "good" checkbox marked. Only took a couple minutes, so not too bad, although there really should be a column for "GOOD?" and you should be able to sort by column and just import.

QUESTION - what's so lame about FCP's P2 card support? Other than this, I've found it to be pretty good. Then again, that is coming from someone who recently switched from using Premiere 2.0 on a PC, so... but what doesn't it do??

 

[THoff]

Panasonic needs to improve the camera as well in this area. They need to add a "NOT SELECTED CLIP" and "NOT MARKED CLIP" option to the THUMBNAIL menu in MCR mode, or a "INVERT SELECTION" option.

Right now there is no easy way to quickly selected all non-marked clips and delete them in the camera.

 

[Barry_Green]

QUESTION - what's so lame about FCP's P2 card support? Other than this, I've found it to be pretty good. Then again, that is coming from someone who recently switched from using Premiere 2.0 on a PC, so... but what doesn't it do??

It works, and many people are happily editing with it, so don't get the idea that I'm saying it doesn't function. But it sure doesn't work the way the P2 system was designed for! Instead of embracing the possibilities afforded by a tapeless workflow, FCP instead tries to shoehorn the footage into its existing derived-from-tape-based workflow.

You should be able to shoot your footage, and then edit that footage. No importing, no file conversions, no logging, just edit. FCP refuses, so far, to implement that capability even though you can do it in Avid, you can do it in EDIUS, you can do it in SpeedEdit, you can do it in Liquid, you can do it in Premiere CS3 (after the next update), and you can even do it in Vegas using Raylight. (of course, FCP can also use Raylight, and most of my objections disappear when using Raylight). Try working in the field doing an 18-day shoot, offloading maybe two terabytes of information... do you really want to now go into the FCP Log & Transfer window and have to convert every one of those files? Wouldn't you rather just start editing? On every other editor, you could. On FCP, no luck -- you *have* to sit there converting gigabyte after gigabyte of data, you're forced to. Some people seem to prefer that workflow, saying it enforces discipline on them in making them back up. Whatever. I'd rather have the flexibility to actually get the work done, rather than watch the computer grinding away in a useless task that's interfering with my ability to hit my deadline, but hey, to each his own. (again, you can skip the entire FCP Log & Transfer window if you use Raylight).

The next infuriating thing about FCP is that it discards all the metadata. You can configure the camera fairly powerfully to include all sorts of information in the clips about what you shot, where you shot it, who shot it, customize the user clip name, do all sorts of stuff -- and then FCP just discards it. Anyone editing on FCP won't be able to use basically any of the metadata. Raylight has a sort of way to sort of preserve it, but not the way it should be done (not Raylight's fault; it's Apple's insistence on working with only Quicktime .MOVs that causes the issue). To be fair, Vegas and Avid don't give you access to the metadata within the editing application, but at least it's all still there and you're still working on those actual files.

Another infuriating thing is that FCP has repeatedly bugged its import window when it comes to VFR clips; if you have "remove duplicate frames" checked and you import a non-VFR clip, it has wigged out and created jerky offspeed clips when it's not supposed to. Sure that's user error, and a user who's paying more attention to it would probably know what happened and know to go back in and un-check that box and re-import the clip, but -- why? Why bother? Why import at all? Why not just drag 'n' drop the clips to the timeline and have everything just WORK? Everyone else can do it, why won't FCP?

FCP also won't let you export back out to the cards. In Avid or EDIUS or other native P2-supporting apps, you can generate a card image and export it. FCP won't. You can sort of get around that by executing a "print to video" back to the cards, but that has two significant limitations:
1) you can't export as 720/24pN/25pN/30pN mode, so any exported 720p segments will *have* to take up all 100 megabits.
2) you can't export to any device other than a camcorder or P2 Mobile/P2 Gear. If you're working on a laptop using the slot reader, or with a P2 Store as a slot reader, or using a PCD20, you can't export to the cards, or to an MXF file at all. Lame.

(Raylight fixes that, by making a p2 exporter function somehow, but I haven't seen how it works on the Apple system).

I'm not knocking FCP itself -- heaven knows that the vast majority of HVX users use it and love it. But I am saying that the built-in FCP implementation of P2 support is the lamest built-in implementation on the market, and all FCP/HVX users would be served better if you'd complain to Apple and tell 'em you're tired of being treated as second-class citizens when every other editor has better/more powerful P2 integration. I don't really expect it to change anything, but hey, at least they'd know you expect more.

To FCP users who are happy with the current workflow: congrats, glad you're happy, please continue working in your preferred way. But to those who want, wish for, and expect more, nag Apple. And to those who are happy with the current workflow, wouldn't you be much happier if you had *both* options? You lose nothing by clamoring for Apple to implement the P2 integration the "right" way, you can still have your Log & Transfer window and your Quicktime conversions if that's what you want, nobody's taking that away from you. But better is better, why not demand FCP be at least comparable (in this aspect) to all their competition?

 

[Barry_Green]

Right now there is no easy way to quickly selected all non-marked clips and delete them in the camera.

True, and it would be very nice.

I've heard of some shooters who use the "shot mark" function in reverse, to facilitate what you're talking about. Instead of marking a clip as "good", they mark it for "death". If they have what they know is a bad clip, they mark it. Then when a card's full, if they need more space, they can go to the menus and show only the marked clips and then delete them. I can't quite get behind that idea but I can see why they do it.

Delete All Unmarked Clips would be a great (but admittedly dangerous!) function. I'd like to see Panasonic implement it, but frankly I can see why they wouldn't be too comfortable doing so; I can guarantee you there'll be many complaints from people who didn't realize that they were deleting clips they really would rather not delete, so they'd start blaming P2 for "losing" files and thus spread doubt about its reputation for reliability...